King Tut's Chariot a Marvel of Ancient Engineering 124
astroengine writes "King Tutankhamun, who ruled Egypt over 3,000 years ago, looks as if he was chauffeured around the desert in one of the earliest-known high-performance vehicles. Tut's chariots surpass all monumental structures of the pharaohs in engineering sophistication. Discovered in pieces by British archaeologist Howard Carter when he entered King Tut's treasure-packed tomb in 1922, the collection consisted of two large ceremonial chariots, a smaller highly decorated one, and three others that were lighter and made for daily use. 'These vehicles appear to be the first mechanical systems which combine the use of kinematics, dynamics and lubrication principles,' said Alberto Rovetta, professor in robotics engineering at the Polytechnic of Milan."
Exaggeration of Ancient Greece that is .... (Score:5, Interesting)
however, when one takes up history as a hobby, and reads up by himself/herself, it is a soon made discovery that for centuries before and during the climax of ancient greece, greeks went to egypt to study. the schools and learning in egypt encompassed practically everything, classified in two different school genres : school of life taught matters related to physical world - medicine, architecture, geometry and so on, school of death taught matters related to the otherworld. one finds out that a goodly number of the greek prominent figures, at least those who could afford it, went to egypt to study, or studied material transferred from egypt.
it is an even more stunning discovery to find out that, most of the spiritual and philosophical concepts we use in everyday life today, even extending to some customs, originate from egypt.
but, due to the most free material that is being free of church influence that was available in renaissance and baroque being ancient greece material that the byzantine scholars brought from istanbul when they fleed the ottoman conquest, western literature and science has developed by a misplaced influence of greece. which is quite natural actually, because until the end of 18th century, there wasnt any awareness of existence of a civilization like egypt.
what is appalling though, is, that still goes on
Re:HOLY AMAZING! (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact that they realized all those years ago that soft is more comfortable than hard, slippery is faster than sticky and light is less work than heavy is amazing!
Well, it is pretty amazing if your Egyptology worldview accepts things like:
* geometrically perfect granite sarcophagi, which modern machinery tools would be hard pressed (if even able) to replicate, were made by slaves - who used basalt chisels.
* The pyramids, which have no scientific or explicable cultural explanation as to their function were constructed by slaves using pulleys, and crude tools - despite their geometric perfection, astronomical and astrological representation, and demonstration of very advanced science all around.
* The same people who built these things - the supposed Egyptians of not that long ago - went into decline inexplicably, and some of the most powerful kings were buried in caves, not the pyramids.
* The same people who built these things (and kept slaves, used primitive tools, and had bad teeth) were capable of complex hieroglyphic communication which we do not fully understand today.
* The Sphinx, which is obviously water stained and eroded by anyone who has ever viewed the spillway of a dam, is eroded by sand.
Honestly, the "Ancient Egyptian gods were really Go'ould" explanations are more reasonable than the nonsense espoused by contemporary Egyptology.
So really, these chariots aren't surprising. What's surprising is that Egyptologists stick with what they think they know instead of accepting the facts of the world around them.
Ancient Egypt had good engineers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ancient Egypt had good engineers (Score:5, Interesting)
And they used slaves to do it all
Using slaves to compute the first 5 digits of PI and do integral calculus, eh?
Fast-forward 3000 years, these slave are called engineers - and the "masters" are no longer called kings but MBA (some owing Ferrari-es too).
Re:HOLY AMAZING! (Score:5, Interesting)
Metallic hinges (Score:3, Interesting)
In the Cairo museum, next to the Tut's collection (it may be part of it, I'm not sure, I was there years ago), I saw a foldable bed frame with metallic hinges. I thought that was the technological high-point of the museum, I haven't seen anything like that from the same time frame anywhere in the world.